§ Ms. QuinTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will obtain for his departmental library a copy of "European Economy December 1990", published by the European Commission.
§ Mr. SainsburyA copy of the publication is already held by the Library.
§ Mr. GryllsTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many of the single market laws have been implemented by each EEC member to date.
§ Mr. SainsburyI refer to the response that I gave to the hon. Member for Warrington, South (Mr. Butler) on 25 June at columns.438–40, which gives the full implementa-tion records of all member states.
§ Mr. LeightonTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will give details of the proposals not yet adopted necessary for the completion of the single market.
§ Mr. SainsburyAnnex 2 of the Commission's reports to the Council and the European Parliament give the proposals submitted by the Commission which still require Council adoption. These reports are deposited in the House Library when my Department receives them from the Commission. A copy of the fifth report is already held. A copy of the sixth report is expected shortly.
§ Mr. GryllsTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many of the single market laws each EC country has refused to implement; and which countries have been brought before the European Court of Justice by the European Commission for persistently refusing to implement the single market laws.
§ Mr. SainsburyI refer to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Warrington, South (Mr. Butler) on 25 June at columns438–40.
588WOur understanding is that it is not a question of member states refusing to implement single market measures, but of legislative and administrative delays.
The Commission's latest report on the completion of the internal market notes that implementation of court judgments has itself considerably improved; 26 judgments by the court are currently the subject of actions brought for failure to act. These failures to act involve only four member states: Greece (3), Germany (4), Belgium (4) and Italy (15). It should be noted that these cases include measures which fall into the general single market area, but go considerably wider than the White Paper programme, on which the figures for implementation provided on 25 June are based.
§ Mr. FlynnTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the departmental on-line data base Spearhead, in providing public and commercial information on the European single market; how many users have accessed the data base in each month since it was established; and at what cost to his Department and the consumer of the service Spearhead is operated.
§ Mr. Sainsbury[holding answer 27 June 1991]: My Department's Spearhead detabase provides comprehensive information on current and prospective EC legislation affecting business. It provides a brief synopsis of measures which have been adopted (and where appropriate how they have been implemented in this country), proposals currently under discussion in Brussels, and others which the Commission intend to submit. A Government contact point is given for each measure who can provide more detailed advice.
In addition Spearhead provides information on shared-cost EC research and development programmes and gives details of draft national legislation proposed in other member states and EFTA countries notified to the European Commission under the procedure laid down in Directive 83/189/EEC.
Spearhead is published commercially through private sector data providers. The Department provides the information free of charge to the hosts. However, in return the Exchequer receives royalties based on actual usage by customers. It was originally launched in April 1988 exclusively on Profile Information (now FT Profile). The database is now also hosted on the Justis on-line service provided by Context Limited and by Data-Star. All subscribers to these services can access the database directly. It is also available through a range of distributors (including Telecom Gold) who offer gateways to these hosts. Because hosts bill distributors as if they were a single customer the actual number of users who have accessed the database each month is not available. My officials therefore monitor the performance indirectly through the royalties received from the hosts which is related to the use made of the database.
The table gives combined royalty payments received on a half yearly basis since Spearhead was launched.
The costs to consumers of accessing the Spearhead database are the standard charges for accessing the various data files carried by the individual hosts. This is approximately £1.80 per minute plus VAT. Distributors set their own pricing arrangements. The estimated marginal cost to my Department of making this service available to business (excluding royalties) is some £10,000 per annum.
589W
Period Royalties (£ thousand) April to June 1988 1 July to December 1988 1 January to June 1989 9.5 July to December 1989 6.9 January to June 1990 5.7 July to December 1990 5.6 January to May 1991 5.0 1 For the first eight months the Department waived royalty payments as part of the launch campaign. Had they not have been waived royalties would have been some £8 thousand.